What do brushing your teeth backwards and working on the worst day of your life have in common? They’re tips that you won’t get from the productivity gurus, but which can nevertheless work really well for you.

Ali Hale and Thursday Bram have started a new blog called Constructively Productive. One of their first entries is a huge collaborative list post consisting of 36 answers to the question: “What’s your biggest productivity tip that flies in the face of ‘conventional’ advice?” (Mine’s #22.)

Check out 36 Secrets the Productivity Gurus Won’t Tell You (But Our Heretics Will). It’s a good way to brighten your Friday while picking up some useful tips at the same time. One word of warning though: one size does not fit all (after all, that’s why they call them heretics).

Photo by tentwo.teneight, showing what two groups did with a supply of Legos and instructions to “build a structure.” On the left is the work of the sensing types; on the right, the work of the intuitive types.

In my post Bomb Threats And You: Temperaments In Action, I wrote about the four personality temperaments. The temperaments are now part of the modern Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, but they date back to at least 590 B.C.

Akemi Gaines at Real Life Spirituality left a comment on that post, bringing up a number of points I wanted to respond to. Now a year and three months later, I figure it’s about time I did! All quotes are from Akemi’s comment.

“All these personality analysis are based on the respondents’ answers, in other words, their own perception of their preferences and choices. This automatically sets limits…is my own observation correct?”

The MBTI and most personality profilers are based on the individual’s self-assessment. And while that makes perfect sense in some ways, it also makes it easy to intentionally or unintentionally bias the results. If you want to be a certain type, or you think you know the “right” answer, or you wish a particular trait applied to you, it’s easy to be less than honest with yourself (possibly subconsciously).

Last month I wrote about a career test based on color preferences. While I wasn’t much of a fan of that test, I like how it’s hard to influence. If you like green, and you have no idea whether that’s “good” or “bad,” you might as well say you like green.

But if the person is capable of steering the results towards what they want, I think we just have to accept that as a limitation of the testing methodology. The best defense is to be careful to answer the questions accurately, knowing that there are no right or wrong answers.

“For instance, if I choose going out with friends rather than staying home as my preferred way of spending spare time, wouldn’t I know already I’m extroverted? Do I need the test to tell me?”

Probably not. Most people already know whether they’re an introvert or an extravert, because these are terms they’ve been hearing for years. However, it’s very unlikely that they really understand what they mean, particularly introverts (hence, the need for The Introverts Strike Back and Introverts And Extraverts: Can’t We Just Get Along?).

Also, there are people who are somewhat borderline, who might need a test to tell them what they are. There have been many I vs. E debates over Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Adolf Hitler, for example.

Finally, while the average person may already know whether they’re an introvert or extravert, they don’t know a thing about sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, or judging/perceiving.

“In reality, I spend the majority of my time alone at home, and my answer may be based on my perception of what I do in my spare time — those occasional special time I go out. So am I really E?”

When someone came to my workplace to administer the MBTI, she went over the types of our company’s two founders. She surprised some people by telling us that our extremely chatty CTO was an I. She explained that although he talked a lot, you have to pay attention to what he was talking about – generally software, never himself.

In the same way, there are surely explanations for an extravert who spends most of their time alone at home, but let’s not put Akemi under the microscope.

“Another problem of these analysis is they force us to think in either-or way. For instance, MBTI puts you either sensing or intuitive. But really? This may be helpful for someone who is close to 100% of either way (I’m 100% intuitive. I hardly see the “practical” side of reality) but what if someone is, say, 60% intuitive and 40% sensing?”

I think this is one of the most valid criticisms of the MBTI. If you think of the S-N scale as a continuum from 0% N to 100% N, it follows a normal distribution, or a bell-shaped curve. A few people are close to 0% N, a few people are close to 100% N, but most people are clustered around 50% N. So then why are we polarizing everyone, when most people are near the middle?

I don’t have a good explanation, but the theory is that your absolute position on the scale matters less than the side of the middle on which you lie. Meaning that a 45% N might be more similar to a 20% N (far, but same side of the middle) than they are to a 55% N (close, but on the other side).

This doesn’t make much sense, but it actually seems to hold up pretty well. I’m not an extreme T and I’m probably only a moderate N, but I definitely connect with these sides far more than their opposites.

“In this case [60% intuitive and 40% sensing], I think it would be more helpful to say, “You are very intuitive and conceptual, but you are also very capable in paying attention to details””

Yes, people should be aware of different sides of their personality. If a detailed customized report is available, it should explain this. If only general descriptions of each type are available, the person should read about similar types. And if they can take the MBTI step 2, this breaks down each letter pair into 5 facets, to show their preferences in much more detail.

“In my case, judgmental and perceptive is almost the same amount. If you check ENFJ, you may agree it’s Akemi.” [She identified herself as an ENFP]

Yes, I can see that. ENFJ’s are “the great communicators.” I’m very split on J/P too, and if you check INTJ (“the masterminds”), you may agree that it’s me [but I'm really an INTP]. (BTW, be careful to use the words judging and perceiving rather than judgmental and perceptive – many people use them interchangeably, but they have different meanings.)

Being split on a letter does happen sometimes. I spoke to a career coach who had a client that was split right down the middle on all four letters – and very confused about what career path to follow!

Thanks for the great comment, Akemi, and sorry for the delay in responding! Anyone wanting to learn more about their own personality is invited to read my ebook The Personality Puzzle.

Feeling let down by Iron Man 2? Then give my movie script a try, and find out what awaits us in 2012.

Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York: The Movie is my 2010 Script Frenzy project. It’s a prequel to my novel of the same name, which was my 2009 NaNoWriMo project.

I suggest reading Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York: The Novel first, if possible. (Currently, the only option is to read it online page by page with all the ads, but I’ll make physical copies available on Amazon as soon as I can.)

The movie has none of the depth of the novel, the plausible 2012 theory, the end of the world drama, and so on. It’s basically just a dumbed down comedy. But it fills in the backstory of the novel, plus it has swordfights, drug-induced trances, sociopathic lawyers, Oompa-Loompas, and exploding kidneys.

Potentially starring:

Shia LaBeouf as Frank Breadstick
Lindsay Lohan as Yvonne Dubois
Janeane Garofalo as Janice Goldwoman
Matthew Fox as Jack Crowley
Catherine Zeta-Jones as Milli Vanilli Chilli Willi
Glenn Close as Ivana Suyurass
and Leslie Nielsen as Count Voldemort Sidious Hitler the Terrible

Hay House sent me a review copy of Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason by best-selling author and medical intuitive Caroline Myss. My first thought was “Boy, did they pick the wrong guy for this.” I found it OK, but keep in mind that I’m not exactly in the target audience, and people who are would like it more than I did.

“Gravity” here refers to serious or weighted thoughts and emotions. And defying gravity is about healing diseases by abandoning the fruitless quest for reason and logic when it comes to illness.

She says that you can’t reason with illness; you can’t always determine why you became sick, and you’re not going to heal yourself by learning the lesson you’re supposed to learn. But what can possibly heal you, when reason can’t, is the power of grace.

People tell me I’m too much into reason, and maybe that’s why I found the book hard to follow. I did get a general good feeling from reading it, but a lot of it seemed to not even be about healing, more about how to live well by forgiving and letting things go.

It should appeal to a fairly wide audience, since it’s not tied to any specific religion, and it’s moderate on the woo-woo factor. My favorite part might have been where she shows the connection between the 7 deadly sins, the 7 chakras, and what she calls the 7 inner graces.

I know someone who was recently given 2 years to live with stage 4 colon cancer. Her doctors have given up, and she actually had to tell them to stop being so negative around her or she’s going to find new doctors. If I were in that situation, I’m sure I would be diving into books like this. But since I’m not, I found it hard to relate to.

For those who are facing a health crisis, Defy Gravity is worth considering. For those who are not, there are still some things you might pick up from it, particularly if you’re open to going beyond the bounds of reason.

“If little labour, little are our gains:
Man’s fortunes are according to his pains.”

- Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 1650

“Gain with pain is good.
Gain without pain is better.”

- me, just now

Above is a picture of my right arm, showing my battle scars from my first class of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The bruises look much worse in real life, and I’ve got them on both arms, one side of my chest, one ankle, and one toe. But do pains imply gains?

Over the last couple of days, I took trial classes at two different BJJ schools, both of which looked great on paper. Both were fun and educational, but one of them barely made me break a sweat, while the other left me bruised, sore, and out of breath.

Which one do you think I signed up with? Which one would you have signed up with? I went with the second one (the pains), but I don’t think the most painful choice is always the best one.

Yes, some things require a struggle, and always quitting at the first sign of difficulty won’t serve you well. But it’s entirely possible to push to the point where additional pain becomes pointless or even counterproductive.

A common example is what weightlifters call overtraining. Some people think they need to do tons of sets every day and fight through the soreness, when in reality backing off and doing much less would give them more gains as well as less pains.

There’s a happy middle ground between cowardice and masochism. First, pick your battles (no sense in fighting for something that’s not important). Then, decide on a strategy (try to work smarter, not necessarily harder). Next, take what pain you must, but don’t mistake it for the goal. Finally, enjoy your gains, hopefully with as few pains as possible.

I just wrote a movie script in 21 days. (Well, technically it took me from April 1st to April 22nd, but I took one day off.) It was actually my second time (I wrote a script for a Mork & Mindy movie when I was 10), but this was the first time I did it the right way.

If you’ve seen Howard the Duck, you might think anyone can write a movie script, and you’d be right. But how exactly do you do it, and how does it compare to, say, writing a novel?

This work was my Script Frenzy debut, and I’ll put it online after I do some basic editing. (Update 5/10/2010: I’ve just posted Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York: The Movie.)

What NaNoWriMo is for novels, Script Frenzy is for movies, plays, TV shows, and comic books. It occurs every April, with the goal being to write 100 pages of scripted material in 30 days. The idea is that if you give yourself a tight deadline, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. Your draft might need a lot of polishing, but that’s far better than never finishing anything.

Script Frenzy sets the finish line at 100 pages. The reason for this is because it’s a nice round number, and also towards the lower end for a finished script. Each page of a screenplay translates into roughly one minute of action, so my 103 page script would give about an hour and 43 minutes of screen time.

As far as actually getting it done, most of my productivity tips about novel writing apply here, so check out How To Write A Novel In 21 Days. I’d say Script Frenzy is a bit easier than NaNoWriMo. It takes less than half as many words (for me, 21,000 vs. 55,000), though it’s twice as hard to get the words to flow. Now, what does a movie script actually involve?

A movie script, known as a screenplay in industry terms, is not a movie itself, but the blueprint for one. It gives directions as to what the characters say and do. It tells the director what roles need to be filled, what stages need to be built, what effects need to be created, and what lines the actors need to read.

As the screenwriter, your job is to spell out exactly what happens in the movie. You also need to make it easy for people to scan it to locate specific things, such as which scenes can be shot at night, or which actors need to be flown to Niagara Falls for a particular scene.

To do this, a very specific format and set of conventions are used. Fortunately, the good people at Script Frenzy are nice enough to provide a Word template to handle the formatting and a quick guide to illustrate the process. I’ll just give an overview here.

Using the template, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of things. You select SLUGLINE from the Styles list, which sets the left indent to 0.75″ and switches to all caps. Then you type something like:

EXT. FRANK’S STREET – NIGHT

A slugline tells you where we are – interior or exterior, location, and approximate time. This tells the crew whether they’re filming at a set or on location, and when. It helps them shoot all the scenes for one set together, instead of needlessly jumping between locations.

When you select Action from the Styles list, we exit all caps mode, and you describe the scene:

Snow has recently begun to fall, and it is starting to stick to the street. FRANK and JANICE are walking back from the movie theater, neither having broken the uncomfortable silence since seeing themselves onscreen for the first time.

When you select CHARACTER, we go back to all caps, with a left indent of 2.75″. Then you simply type:

FRANK

Character names are always capitalized before their dialog (and often, throughout the script). This lets people quickly see who is in what scene, as well as locate all the lines for a particular character. The name is followed by (O.S.) if they are offscreen (such as on the other end of a phone call), or (V.O.) if they are giving a voiceover (such as narration, or when another character is recalling something they said).

While actors don’t like being told how to say their lines, we can include a Parenthentical if we need to give direction to make our intent clear. For example:

(sarcastically)

Then we select Dialogue from Styles, which sets the left indent to 1.75″. Now we say what the character says:

Wow, that was a great movie. It’s a shoo-in for Best Picture.

OK, that’s most of what you need to know about formatting. But how do you come up with something to write?

Screenplays can be categorized as original or adapted. Original screenplays are not based on any existing work. Adapted screenplays are derived from previously published material (often a novel, but possibly a play, short story, poem, song, comic book, etc).

The advantage of writing an adapted screenplay is that a lot has already been worked out for you. Someone else has put a lot of effort into developing the characters and making the storyline come together, so you can just focus on translating it to the big screen. The disadvantage is that some novels aren’t easily translated. Look at Jurassic Park – great book by Michael Crichton, great movie by Steven Spielberg – but beneath the surface they have very little in common.

When writing an original screenplay, you’re free to do whatever you want, and you’re not burdened with anything from the book that won’t work so well in the movie. The downside is that you have to come up with everything from scratch.

Mine would be considered an adapted screenplay, since it’s based on my novel. However, it’s not a direct translation. It’s actually a prequel, covering events that happened a few days prior to the novel. Also, the main characters in the movie are minor characters in the novel.

I’d say that the main difference between a novel and a screenplay is that the audience can’t hear your thoughts in the latter. In a novel, a character can look at a fingerprint and then launch into a five-thousand word explanation of how the murder happened. If this were translated directly into a movie scene, the audience would just see the character looking at a fingerprint, then staring into space forever.

The fact that the audience can’t hear your thoughts makes some things much more difficult. For example, how do you reveal a character’s last name in a natural way? I’m not sure. I did it with a combination of seeing names on office doors, one character being addressed formally by a superior, some characters just not having last names, etc.

This is a very simple problem for a novel, but a non-trivial one for a movie. But having gone through this, I’m sure I’ll be noticing this kind of thing when I see movies from now on. I encountered a similar issue with my novel, when I wasn’t sure how to say that a character said something, and now I always notice that when I read books. But you take a stab at it, you learn, you get better, and you enjoy the process.

Another thing is that you have to think about pacing, and whether the audience would constantly have something to be excited about. You may feel torn between using a bunch of dialog to explain something that’s really deep, as opposed to just shooting a whole bunch of guns to keep the action up. This is probably the biggest reason why the book is usually better than the movie.

After you’ve gotten your screenplay written, congratulations, you are now a screenwriter! You can either enjoy your script for what it is, or you can actually have it produced and turned into a movie. Speaking of which, if your name is Mel Brooks, Jim Carrey, or Adam Sandler, please send me an email.

Forty years ago, Richard Bolles asked job seekers “What color is your parachute?” It turns out that he may not have been speaking metaphorically.

The Dewey Color System offers a free career test based entirely on color preferences – just spend a minute clicking on the colors you like most or least. They claim it is now the world’s most accurate career test.

Compared to the general public, CEOs are three times more likely to choose magenta, three times less likely to choose red, and three and a half times less likely to choose yellow.

What does this mean? According to the Color Career Counselor test, CEOs are more sensitive and private than average, less likely to be dominant or a perfectionist, and more likely to be emotionally unstable.

The makers of this test say it measures 16 personality factors, including independence, anxiety, self-control, extraversion, and tough-mindedness. They also say it may identify things such as overeating tendencies or emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

Its supporters say that this simple test is as valid as the much lengthier Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (not a career test, BTW) and Gallup StrengthsFinder, and much harder to influence. Some people have called it eerily accurate, others have likened it to horoscopes.

I gave it a try to see how accurate it was for me. (It asks for an email address at the end, but it’s optional, and you have to skip past one ad). The results were mixed at best.

For my best occupational category, it said:

You’re a CREATOR
Keywords: Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

Check, kind of.

For my second best occupational category, it said:

You’re a SOCIAL MANAGER
Keywords: Tactful, Cooperative, Generous, Understanding, Insightful, Friendly, and Cheerful

Um, no.

And as with any career test I’ve ever seen, the list of suggested occupations is so ridiculously broad as to be useless.

While I wasn’t wowed by my results, I think color preference probably does say something about you. But for now, a good old fashioned verbal test seems more likely to show your true colors.

Photo by tibchris

As a follow-up to the gut thinking discussion, @MiscBytes passed on a link to a relevant study. It turns out that Armed With Information, People Make Poor Choices (and despite the date, I don’t think it was an April Fools’ joke).

How do you choose between a smaller reward now and a bigger reward later? You might expect that people who think with their gut would foolishly choose short term satisfaction, while people who think with their brain would wisely do what’s better in the long run. But the study found that people who were given complete information about their options were more likely to take the quick reward.

One of the researchers said “To fully appreciate a long-term option, you have to choose it repeatedly and begin to feel the benefits.” In other words, you have to train your gut, because your head isn’t making the decision, even when you give it all the information it needs.

The study involved racking up points in a computer program, with a cash incentive for good performance. Subjects were repeatedly given two options. One option gave more points now, while the other gave the possibility of more points later. The subjects who were given full and accurate information were twice as likely to take the quick payoff as those who were given incomplete or false information about what they were giving up.

(I had a couple of problems with the article. One, it was really vague about the long term option. What were the odds of it paying off (it appeared to not be guaranteed), and how much would it pay off (presumably more points than you gave up in the short term, but it doesn’t say)? But I’m assuming it was apparent to the subjects that the long term option was logically the better choice. Two, it leaves its title hanging – it doesn’t offer any explanation as to why having more information causes you to make the wrong choice.)

This reminded me of the marshmallow test. In this study, marshmallows were placed in front of hungry four year olds. They were told they could eat one marshmallow now, or they could have two if they waited a few minutes. 14 years later, the ones who were able to hold out for two marshmallows were more socially competent, optimistic, assertive, dependable, trustworthy, and scored 210 points higher on the SAT.

However, in the marshmallow test (and maybe the computer program test too), the long term choice is clearly better. Your second marshmallow is guaranteed, and coming in just a few minutes. But is the long term winner always the better choice?

Here’s an example from the “armed with information” article: “In a real-life scenario, a student who stayed home to study and then learned he had missed a fun party would be less likely to study next time in a similar situation – even if that option provides more long-term benefits.”

OK, but is that a bad thing? Are they supposed to skip all parties so they can spend all of their time studying? Once you’ve studied enough, how much benefit is there in studying a little more, compared to going to a party?

In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss says “This book is not about saving and will not recommend you abandon your daily glass of red wine for a million dollars 50 years from now. I’d rather have the wine.” That’s a reasonable choice. Not necessarily the one everyone should make, but a reasonable one.

It’s important to consider the cost of instant gratification. But it’s also important to consider the cost of waiting. How much is the wine worth to you?

Did you ever get some news that was really good, almost too good to be true? And you wanted to share it with everyone, but you just couldn’t until you knew for sure that you weren’t dreaming? Well, now I know that I’m not dreaming.

I just found out that my 2012 thriller novel, Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, made the New York Times Best Seller list. And not only that, but it took the #1 spot. Not bad for a book that hasn’t officially been published yet.

My book hasn’t technically been released for general distribution, but pre-orders count towards the numbers they use in determining the rankings. Based on pre-orders received through today, it just barely beat out Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol for the lead in the fiction category, selling over 2 million copies in its first week.

I know I haven’t been posting much lately, but I’ve been really busy with book tours and signings and stuff. I want to thank everyone for their support in making this possible. If we survive 2012, I’ll know it was because of people like you.

Is it best to make rational decisions with your brain, or just go with your gut? Are people who insist on logic making the best use of all available information, or are they missing out on something far more powerful?

We always hear that sometimes you just have to listen to your gut. What exactly is the gut, anyway? Dictionary.com offers this definition:

“the alimentary canal, esp. between the pylorus and the anus, or some portion of it”

If I had to pick a body part other than the brain to listen to, I’m not sure this would have been my first choice. Why not the skin, heart, or solar plexus, or even the appendix? But anyway, I’m willing to consider that maybe we do underestimate the decision-making power of our intestines.

I asked about it on Twitter, and got a couple of responses. @Armen said:

“My gut has told me some very smart things that I have ignored and paid for, but I hear your point there [that the brain is more likely to be right]…It sure is overrated. On the other hand, it is underrated by folks who ignore it until problems show up…Some that come to mind here are gut telling to see dentist, or to come clean on lie, or to try a biz opportunity”

But even if the gut works in these cases, is it the best source of advice?

Regarding the dentist, you can listen to the calendar that says to go every six months, or to your nerves that say you have a toothache. Regarding the lie, you could listen to your conscience and not lie in the first place.

As for the business opportunity, this is where I can see the gut being helpful. Many business ideas that looked crazy on paper have become huge successes. In these cases, only a gut feeling could convince someone to follow through without a logical reason.

But gut feelings can also lead people astray, such as the gambler who “just knows” that his luck is about to change (only it doesn’t). How do you sort out the accurate gut feelings from all the rest?

Maybe the best idea is to use the gut not as a replacement for the brain, but as an idea generator to brainstorm (intestinestorm?) potential options before handing them over to the brain for evaluation.

Back to Twitter, @MiscBytes said:

“Gut” is just our brain using shortcuts it’s already figured out! http://www.miscbytes.com/gut-feelings/

The linked post mentions a book that talks about the brain quickly using rules of thumb to make its best guess without analyzing all the data. This best guess is known as a “gut feeling.”

It’s not always right, of course. Gut feelings would tell you that a bowling ball falls faster than a grape, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that there are no irrational numbers in the Cantor set, and that it’s better to upgrade a Prius than a Suburban (see When Logic And Intuition Fail).

But while poring over all the data might be better in theory, a gut feeling often works well when facing a shortage of time. An excess of data can also overwhelm you, blinding you to the answer that your intuition can clearly see.

Right now, think of some either-or decision you have to make, something you haven’t thought out yet. Going to work tomorrow vs. taking a day off, having a healthy meal vs. junk food, buying this house vs. the other one, something like that.

I’m going to flip a coin to help you decide. Heads, you take the first option. Tails, you take the second. Ready?

The coin is in the air…I’ve caught it, and it’s…

But I don’t need to say what it is. You already know what you want it to be. This is your gut talking. Does it conflict with your brain? And which organ will win?

Photo by mikebaird